So here you are, it’s the day after “one of those days”. You are beyond tired, you still have the lingerings of that stress headache, and not everything is quite resolved yet. The easy route would be to sit there, do nothing, and veg out. The best route, however, would be to jump up, get ready for the day, and “Eat that frog”. Now, right now you’re probably thinking I’m advocating some sort of culinary adventure, or that I am just plain nuts. While culinary adventures are quite therapeutic, and can give you that “high” that thrill seekers are all about, what I’m really referring to an old proverb that says “If the first thing you do, when you wake up in the morning, is eat a frog, nothing worse can happen to you the rest of the day.” Its expounded upon pretty well in one of my favorite leadership books, “Eat That Frog” by Brian Tracy, and its a short read, so if you’re looking for some quick inspiration and development, check it out.
It’s a pretty radical concept, and one that goes against the grain of everything we are naturally programmed for. We want the easy way, we want the path of least resistance, but what I’m suggesting is getting up and tackling the biggest thing you have in front of you that day, first thing. While eating a real frog may be slightly more tempting than taking on that “big thing”, I’m fairly sure the residual effects will be much better.
Now, I know that you’re thinking right now, “Where does God come into play here?” That’s simple, if you’re recovering from “one of those days” and you choose to talk to God about it, he will show you which way to go. You will KNOW, what your “frog” is for that day. From there, it’s your choice if you want to eat it or not. The next step from there is seeing if we can’t make these frogs any bigger, and maybe even hairy.
When I was still in retail leadership with some of my Holy Burrito Crew friends, we loved to throw around the term “beehag”, which was actually the acronym B.H.A.G. and came from a book called “Built To Last” that was pretty popular in the business leadership world in the 90s and early aughts. The acronym stands for “Big Hairy Audacious Goal” and was typically meant as something we would give each other and our subordinates to challenge and develop them. Since boiling down all the leadership I’ve lived over the past couple decades and digesting it into who I am as a whole, I’ve come to realize that BHAGs are something that we should probably be putting in front of each other as members of the Body of Christ. The only way for us to grow and keep a momentum is to keep challenging each other to do more and live better.
Now, don’t take that as a reason to call people out on stuff by any means, what I want to know here, is how do we continue to invite people into the fold to do what Jesus taught us when he taught us to pray the line “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth, as it is in Heaven.” How often do we just kind of glaze over that part of the prayer these days? Shouldn’t we be trying to show people the awesome love and community that Heaven is all about? Shouldn’t we be trying to remove the hell’s that exist on this earth and replace them with Heavens? I think that’s a pretty audacious goal, and the process of getting there is definitely big and hairy, and more than likely entails doing the kind of stuff that isn’t easy to do when we wake up first thing in the morning.
So what’s your frog today? Is it big and hairy and audacious? Maybe it’s something as simple as walking across the street and chatting up that neighbor that you haven’t spoken to in years, or maybe it’s jumping on a plane to a third world style country to start digging wells and feeding the hungry to love those that the rest of the world may have forgotten, but either way, I bet it’s going to bring a little more Heaven down to this earth so that His will might be done.
Zach is a father, husband, and social media addict that describes his approach to faith as being a “Charismatic, Evangelical, Anabaptist that loves Catholic traditon, or just a plain old ‘lover of Jesus’ for short. He is the Youth director at Poages Mill Church of the Brethren and hangs out with an odd group he calls the “Holy Burrito Crew”.
Musings of the Holy Burrito 